BATON ROUGE – A Harvey woman faces dozens of felony charges for falsifying information on her own tax return and those of clients of her tax preparation business.

Lisa Adams, of 1617 Carriage Lane in Harvey, allegedly submitted state tax returns for clients of Omega Tax Services that contained false business losses for companies that had not sustained any losses, and in some cases for companies that did not exist.

Louisiana Department of Revenue investigators interviewed ten of Adams’ clients. Four of them were business owners who said she fabricated losses on their 2013 tax returns. And six of them said she listed business losses on their returns despite the fact that they did not own or operate businesses in 2013.

Adams is accused also of falsifying her own tax return, citing losses for a florist shop she claimed she owned in 2013. There is no evidence that business ever existed.

And Adams is charged with falsifying a mortgage interest statement to claim a tax deduction for a property in New Orleans. In that case, she received a fraudulent refund in the amount of $716.

The entire series of fraud schemes amounted to $28,458.

Adams was arrested on Wednesday, February 25 and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on 11 counts of filing or maintaining false public records, 11 counts of computer fraud, two counts of forgery and one count of theft. She is the 41st person arrested under a joint anti-fraud initiative of the Department of Revenue and the state Attorney General’s office.

BATON ROUGE – Business operators and tax preparers needing help with corporate income, sales, withholding, and other business taxes can get in-person customer service at the New Orleans regional office of the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR).

Beginning March 2, the office will be open Monday through Friday from 8AM-4PM. Customer service is by appointment only. Call 504-568-5231 to leave a voicemail message requesting an appointment. An LDR tax officer will return the call within 24 hours to confirm.

Assistance at the New Orleans LDR office is for business taxes only. Regional office staff cannot help with the preparation of state individual income tax returns. For answers to questions about individual income taxes, visit www.revenue.louisiana.gov/IndividualIncomeTax or call 855-307-3893.

BATON ROUGE - In response to the recent increase and still unfolding developments centered around fraudulent tax returns filed across the country, the Louisiana Department of Revenue announced today that the Department is taking extra precautions to verify the filings and refunds of taxpayers and will extend the date to begin issuing refunds by one week, until the week of March 2.

“Given the increase in the filing of fraudulent tax returns around the country, where criminals are stealing identities and claiming refunds in others’ names, we decided to implement additional security measures this year to ensure we detect any suspicious activity, and to protect the identities of our taxpayers,” said Secretary of Revenue Tim Barfield.

The extended period will provide the Department with more time to closely review returns and to utilize its identification verification process for individual taxpayers when and if inconsistencies in returns are identified.

While identity-based tax refund fraud is still a relatively new problem for revenue departments in the 43 states where taxpayers file tax returns, the Department of Revenue is ahead of the curve. Over the past two years, LDR has prevented over $11 million in fraudulent tax refunds from going out the door. Also, through a joint anti-fraud initiative with the state Attorney General’s office, 40 people have been arrested for fraudulent activity.

“We recognize that this situation places an undeserved burden on the thousands of taxpayers who consistently do the right thing. It is unfortunate that at this time the good taxpayers will suffer for those who have chosen to be criminals,” added Barfield. “This is the very reason why the Department of Revenue must do all that we can to safeguard our taxpayers against this type of fraudulent activity.”

Taxpayers who have concerns about the security of their personal information provided to any third party tax preparation software vendor should contact that vendor immediately. Taxpayers who have a reason to believe they may be a victim of identity theft can contact LDR’s Criminal Investigations Division on its fraud hotline at 1-866-940-7053. They can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov/complaint.

LDR began accepting returns on January 20, and was originally scheduled to begin issuing returns on Tuesday, February 24. To date, the Department has received 664,956 electronic returns. On average, the Department processes 1.9 million electronic returns during the tax filing season. The backlog of refund requests received is expected to take a week to complete processing. Once the Department is current, normal processing times of 21 days for electronic returns and 10 weeks for paper returns can be expected.